Esprit de Corpse
by CharlesTheBold
Summary: Why didn't the Careers try to kill each other first in the Games? Here is a possible explanation. Please review


**Esprit de Corpse**

_(Disclaimer: I have no business connection with HUNGER GAMES. My only purpose in writing this story is to have fun and maybe share it)_

_(Byline: Why didn't the Careers try to kill each other first in the Games? Here is a possible explanation)_

"What's the score?" Minerva asked. She was used to keeping notes, something that had been useful in the Tribute Training Program, but the GamesMasters had not given her writing materials in the packet she got at the Cornucopia.

"Ten left," answered Vicky. "Including the six of us."

Minnie Anderson looked around proudly. This was one of the few Hunger Games of recent memory in which all six "Careers" had survived for two days, thanks to teamwork. Her fellow District 2 tribute, Julius. Jawny and Victoria from District 1, Alice and Bill from District 4.

"I hope the Trainers are watching, and know how successful we've been," said Alice.

"You KNOW they're watching," said Jawny in some exasperation. Alice was not too bright. "They've devoted years of their lives to this. Almost as much as we have."

"But they never let us watch the Games, for some reason," said Alice. "Just selected tapes."

"Games last for days," Minerva pointed out. "Mostly the viewers are looking at people hanging around the arena, waiting hours for something to happen. The Trainers wanted us to focus on the high points."

They were the first group to spend all 6 years training under Octavian, a teacher with a number of new ideas. He didn't just train the individual tributes to win. They were trained as a team. The secret was _esprit de corps_, he said, using a French term that was lost on his students until he explained it. The spirit of the group. Jawny, Vicky, Alice, and Bill had been smuggled in from the other Districts to train with them; that was against the rules, but Octavian had somehow induced the enforcers to look the other way.

Since nobody could anticipate what sort of environment the arena would offer, each tribute had been trained to handle a different environment, in addition to base training. Minerva's specialty was flat grasslands, and she had even been trained to ride a horse, though it was highly unlikely that tributes would have access to horses in the arena. Modern horses were mutts, genetically altered so that they could be programmed to follow a certain course without direction . They were too valuable, Minerva thought, for the Gamesmasters to risk in the arena.

There had even been some mysterious sessions which none of the tributes could remember. Octavian and his assistants had placed them under hypnosis for certain periods. He did not explain when they woke up, except to say that he had implanted special instructions in their minds that would help them win.

Other Districts were stupid. Most of them relied on lotteries to choose their tributes, and the results could be laughable. Officially her District 2 relied on a lottery, too. But this year's female winner was such a wuss that she nearly wet her pants when her name was drawn, even though she should have known that Minerva was set up to volunteer in her place.

"So what do we do now?" Alice asked.

The 55th Games arena had turned about to be a forest. That was Julius's specialty, and so he had become the leader. He pointed out the stream running besides their camp.

"Everybody's going to need a source of water, and there are not likely to be many in the arena. The other four tributes may be camped along this brook. I'd say we split into two groups, one going upstream and one downstream."

"Wait a minute," Vicky said, "I gotta go to the bathroom."

"No bathrooms out here," said Bill.

"You know what I mean," said Vicky, reddening a little. She was a good fighter, but a bit reticent about body functions. "I'd like the rest of you to stand guard while I go into the woods."

They let her go, and in the meantime Julius chose the teams. He, Jawny, and Minerva to go downstream; Bill, Vicky, and Alice to go upstream. Minerva liked the division, because it would allow Jawny and herself to stick together. They had spent a few nights together a few times during Training. It was technically against the rules, but Octavian had let it slide, warning only that they mustn't be tempted by sex in the arena. It could be fatally weakening or distracting there.

Vicky returned and the teams started out.

"Keep your weapons ready," Julius instructed. "By now the other four may have formed their own teams and planned a strategy."

Minerva nodded. Her own choice weapon was a slingshot, or catapult as some people called them. Alice thought it was silly, but then Minerva didn't think much of Alice's judgement. A slingshot was small and could be whipped out and deployed in seconds. Unlike a sword or knife, it could be used at a distance. And unlike bows, which needed arrows, you could pick up small rocks anywhere. Octavian had approved, and not only gave her practice aiming it, but carefully taught her about the most vulnerable points of an enemy's body.

After they had gone for about a mile – there was no way of measuring exact distance out here - the cannon went off to mark another death.

"And then there were nine," she said out loud.

"What?" said Julius.

"Some weird nursery rhyme. Three people left, other than us."

Then, suddenly, a devastating thought came into her brain, seemingly from nowhere.

_23 tributes will die and only one will live. 23 tributes will die and only one will live..._

If Minerva wanted to survive the Hunger Games, then Julius, Jawny, Vicky, Alice, and Bill needed to die.

If any of the others wanted to survive, Minerva needed to die. And they all had deadly weapons.

Why hadn't she thought that before? It was so obvious!

Looking at the other two boys, Minerva saw them looking distracted, and realized that they were thinking the same thing.

"We gotta get rid of Alice and Vicky and Bill," Jawny said vaguely. "We need a pl—"

Then he suddenly lunged at Julius with his knife. His talk had been a mere diversion.

But Julius had not been diverted. He was ready, and he rammed his sword into Jawny's body.

Minerva had no time to grieve over the death of her bedmate. The only thing that kept Julius from stabbing her as well was that he had to pull the sword out of Jawny's body. That gave her a few seconds' grace. She dashed into the woods.

She wished that she had her horse with her, and could ride to safety. But the thick growth of the woods would be difficult for a horse, and made concealment easier. She pressed her way through trying to find some hiding place.

There, to the left, a thick growth of trees together, with just enough gap for her to see out. She rushed behind the trees, assured herself that she could not be seen from Julius' direction, and tried to make sense of the situation.

Why had she been oblivious to the threat from the other Careers until less than an hour ago?

The cannon went off to mark Jawny's death. And then there were eight.

Suddenly she heard a voice in her head. Octavian's voice.

"_As long as four people remain outside your corps, you will fight together. You will fight together."_

The hypnotic instructions. He had programmed them not to think of the obvious strategy of trying to eliminate each other, until most of the external threat was gone. Now that there were only three non-Careers left, the program had stopped.

His goal had been to increase the odds that one Career survived. Not any one particular Career. He knew the other five would have to die and he didn't care – or at least, couldn't afford to care. If a Career won the Games, Octavian would be hailed as a genius, and the other five would be dead and forgotten.

At least he had not chosen one Career to win, and programmed the other 5 to fall on their swords, so to speak. Minerva still had a chance to survive.

She spotted Julius walking through the woods, his sword out and bloody. He didn't seem to have noticed her thicket. But Minerva was suddenly conscious that she stank, after two days without a bath. Could he actually detect her by her smell, like a predator?

_Strike first, girl!_

Minerva took a particularly jagged pebble from her pocket and positioned it in her catapult. Took careful aim at his silhouette.

The rock caught him on the temple, and he fell immediately. The sword fell from his hand, and that was enough to convince Minerva that he was really out of it, and that it was safe to come out of hiding to approach the body. But she was careful to check his pulse.

The implanted tracker was monitoring his heartbeat by more sophisticated means, and now it found none. The cannon went off to mark another death. And then there were seven.

She stared at Julius's dead body, overcome with vertigo. Was that a genuine reaction, the result of killing a boy that she had known for years, or was it Octanian's programmed "esprit de corps" trying to reassert itself even though it was too late?

She overcame her inhibitions, and started despoiling the corpse. After all, he didn't his supplies any more, and Minerva did. He had even demanded extra supplies like the compass, on the grounds that he was the leader. It was Minerva's compass now.

She examined it for a few minutes to make sure that she could read it in an emergency. And so she never saw Alice and her knife, until it stabbed her in the back.

And then there were six.

THE END.

_(AUTHOR'S NOTE: The nursery rhyme quote was made famous by Agatha Christie's thriller AND THEN THERE WERE NONE – which, come to think of it, was one of the earliest examples of an all-against-all "elimination game" story turned deadly.)_


End file.
